A survivor of the 1945 Nagasaki nuclear blast has accepted this year’s Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of a group representing survivors of the US atomic bombings, and called for a world free from nuclear weapons.
Terumi Tanaka, 92, is one of the three co-chairs of Nihon Hidankyo, a group for those who lived through the US atomic bomb attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and demanded “actions from governments“ to achieve a nuclear-free world.
Mr Tanaka accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on his organisation’s behalf at a formal ceremony in Oslo’s City Hall on Tuesday. He used his speech to shine a spotlight on abuses of nuclear power by aggressive nations engaged in conflicts around the world, pointing to Russia and Israel specifically.
“The nuclear superpower Russia threatens to use nuclear weapons in its war against Ukraine, and a cabinet member of Israel, in the midst of its unrelenting attacks on Gaza in Palestine, even spoke of the possible use of nuclear arms,” Mr Tanaka said. “I am infinitely saddened and angered that the nuclear taboo threatens to be broken.”
Calling for an end to the use of nuclear weapons, he said: “I hope that the belief that nuclear weapons cannot – and must not – coexist with humanity will take firm hold among citizens of the nuclear weapon states and their allies, and that this will become a force for change in the nuclear policies of their governments.”
Mr Tanaki recounted the pain and trauma he witnessed in 1945 in an interview with The Independent last month. He was just 13 when the 10,000lb atomic bomb “Fat Man” was dropped on Nagasaki on 9 August 1945, landing around 3.2km from his family home. The scenes from that day would be “imprinted on his brain” forever, he said.
“I was lying down reading a book and then suddenly there was just light everywhere. Everything was completely white around me, and I heard this huge sound. It was like nothing I had ever experienced in my life but of course, I could sense that something very dangerous was happening.”
The US bombings of the two Japanese cities on 6 and 9 August in 1945 killed 214,000 people, leading to Japan’s surrender and the end of the Second World War.
Mr Tanaka said he went to ground zero and walked around the city for days looking for five of his relatives.
“Three days later, you could still see hundreds of bodies everywhere, and the injured were just crouching in the shadows not receiving any care or attention at all. This is not a situation the human race should be living in. This is not what humans should be doing to each other.”
In his address in Oslo on Tuesday, he said that Nihon Hidankyo’s movement had undoubtedly played a major role in creating a “nuclear taboo” – cementing the idea that such weapons must never be used again.
“However, there still remain 12,000 nuclear warheads on Earth today, 4,000 of which are operationally deployed, ready for immediate launch,” he said.
